At this point in the techno-age it is probably not a surprise that self-generating music software exists. I recall years back when listening to Radiolab and learning about David Cope and his curious software, Experiments in Musical Intelligence (EMI), that deconstructs famous composers’ work like Beethoven, Chopin, and Mahler, then based on the patterns the software detects, it generates similar pieces. Depending on how familiar one might be with these different composers, it is possible to hear a close resemblance to particular pieces. Regardless, it is still fairly impressive that Cope’s software does a pretty decent mimic of these masterworks.

In searching for self-generated music, I also came across Medal Composer which uses a composition engine and builds a near infinite variety of musical work from a predetermined set of musical parameters. They provided one YouTube video with several shorter samples of these pieces. In all fairness, they are pretty interesting and in some cases may even pass for human compositions. The website is pretty curious too, I recommend a quick perusal – it won’t disappoint.

One more application that surfaced in this search and which may actually be the most interesting and genuinely pleasant to listen to is Noatikl (pronounced “noh – tickle”) created by Intermorphic. Noatikl is more interactive yet still requires no musical programming and generates music as well as sound design solely based on how a user adjusts its parameters. The more I look over their website, the more fascinating this app looks. I may even get it as it is current. Below are two sample tracks I found uploaded from different Noatikl users on to YouTube and one of their demos. Click here to listen to some tracks they have directly on their website. I’m somewhat blown away by how good these are.

Who’d have guessed how music might be made or “made” rather. Somewhat in continuation of yesterday’s post, music always finds a way. Here’s to the next generation.

Noatikl generated MIDI events in combination with the extensive sound library of audio labs Pforzheim University. This audio-visual sound project was also designed for the panorama laboratory of the ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany.